Previous issues of Bits about Money

Financial systems take a holiday

Ever wondered about what happens when banks are closed or why some apps have operating hours? It's fascinating.

The Long Shadow of Checks

A lot of more modern financial infrastructure follows the paths blazed by checks, at least in the U.S.

The Bond villain compliance strategy

Jurisdictional gamesmanship is a common strategy for crypto businesses. Here is how it worked out for Binance and its CEO. Spoiler: poorly.

Seeing like a Bank

The structural reasons why banks sometimes behave bizarrely in interactions with customers, like forgetting things which customers tell them.

Credit card debt collection

Credit card debt is the waste stream of consumer finance. The debt collection industry ends up being sordid, for complex structural and microeconomic reasons.

Requiem for a bank loan

A brief retrospective on an attractive product First Republic used to offer, and a wider discourse on the banking crisis.

Banking in very uncertain times

We may be in the early stages of a banking crisis: why, what we're doing to avoid it, and what we may not get about it.

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I write roughly biweekly on the intersection of tech, financial infrastructure, and systems thinking. It's free.